Prime Minister Bill English opened his post-cabinet press conference with a statement on the Government’s plan to use a ‘risk index’ system for targetted education funding to replace the decile system.

During questions the PM said the promise of no school losing funding would be paid for through subsequent budgets. He said the system this would allow more precise targetting of funding to for education support and seemed confident it would somehow produce less stigma for schools than the current decile system. English said he didn’t mind where children went to school as long as they had the same opportunity for educational success.

Other topics included who the PM would rather (Andrew Little or Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters or Gareth Morgan), the regulations for online gun trading, the impending handover of the Pike River mine and the Government’s undertakings to the Pike families, reaction to the Government’s planned immigration changes, the lack of a current appointment for EPA chair, and New Zealand’s lack of an intelligence role or plans for security changes after an alleged airplane terrorist plot in Australia.